Tech Fair: A few days after...

Well, last Thursday was the culmination of a couple months worth of preparation. The door64 Tech Fair hosted 37 Central Texas tech companies, three very stimulating (and quite popular) talks, one engaging panel discussion, and attracted just short of 1000 attendees throughout the day.

First, I would like to thank the national and Central Texas IEEE officers and staff, Nan Matthews and Vicki Segna at the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Stephanie Peco at UT ECE, R.D. Childers, Kenny Rice, and the countless other volunteers who worked behind the scenes to make the day run smoothly. They handled the welcome table, put up signs on all the tables, setup the vast array of power strips in the expo area, coordinated the company table setup, and much more. On behalf of me and all the attendees, I thank you. The event wouldn't have worked without you all. Finally, many thanks to Christine Wylie & Traci Berry at Goodwill for providing us with the venue to host this event in the first place. Truly they have exemplified good will to our local tech community.

The day was a whirlwind of people coming an going, demonstrations, conversations, and discussions. We had an initial surge at 11 AM, and the expo area quickly filled up. OK, it was....cozy. Clearly the next one of these events will require a larger area. But there was an energy among the attendees that stayed through the entire day. The afternoon had a steady stream of people coming in to visit the expo and attend the sessions. Although I could not attend the sessions personally, I'm told by many other attendees that they were quite engaging; I expected nothing less. The presenters had been preparing for weeks in order to benefit attendees with their unique material. The finale of the Tech Fair was the Engineer of 2020 panel discussion, which drew a particularly large and engaged crowd. There was plenty of Q&A, and I bet the discussion could have continued longer if we had the time. In fact, many panelists and attendees stayed afterward to continue the conversation. Into the evening folks ascended upstairs for networking, food, and drinks at the Austin Chamber of Commerce Brain Party in celebration of IEEE's 125th anniversary.

By 10 PM, I arrived home, took care of a few emails, and quite literally fell into bed.

There was some real-time coverage on Twitter, as well as post-event coverage in the Statesman and local blogs. In addition, ReelSocialMedia brought out their camera and videotaped much of the event. They will be putting together some footage to recap various aspects of the day. I can't wait to see what they create! Of course, it will be posted here when it's completed.

Amplify did a fantastic job of keeping two huge ice chests full of Cokes and bottled water, and popping popcorn all day long! And then TelecomCareers.net sponsored discounted gourmet coffee prepared by Lucy and Meg of HallowedGrounds. I was running on iced coffee all day! Thanks to BuildASign.com for providing all the signage for the event, and to IEEE for sponsoring the egg rolls and spring rolls from the Triumph Cafe.

Finally, thank YOU for coming out that day. This was a unique networking event, where you could network with other attendees, and network with companies. Yes, that's exactly what you were doing. You learn about them, and they learn about you. Will it turn into something, be it a sales, partnership, consulting, or a job? Time will tell, but this was the opportunity to get your feet in each others' doors, so to say.

Here's the presentations from the talks:

• Tech Ranch: Employee to Entrepreneur (PDF)
• Brian Massey: The Market for Me
• Darrel Raynor: The Art of Consulting (PDF)

Don't forget to follow-up with an email to those people you met last Thursday. Have a great week!